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Rally with Mass General Brigham Terms of Use


Last Updated: November 14, 2023

We, Mass General Brigham Incorporated ("Mass General Brigham") and our affiliates (collectively the "Affiliates"), operate this Rally with Mass General Brigham website (the "Website"). The Website provides an online platform to facilitate collaboration between the public and the research community and to provide information about research opportunities that might be of interest to users of the Website.

By using the Website, you agree to these Terms of Use (the "Terms") and our Website Privacy Policy. To the fullest extent permitted by law, the controlling language for this Agreement and the Website Privacy Policy is English. Any translation has been provided for your convenience, and you may view the English language version here. If you do not agree to the Terms, do not use the Website. you will still be bound by the Terms as they existed when you last used the Website. We reserve the right to make changes to these terms at any time. Please check back from time to time to ensure you are aware of any updates or changes.

THESE TERMS INCLUDE AN AGREEMENT TO SUBMIT ALL DISPUTES TO INDIVIDUAL MANDATORY ARBITRATION - PLEASE READ CAREFULLY.

BY BROWSING, ACCESSING OR OTHERWISE USING THE WEBSITE IN ANY MANNER, YOU HEREBY ACCEPT, WITHOUT LIMITATION OR QUALIFICATION, THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS, PLEASE DO NOT USE THE WEBSITE AND EXIT NOW.


Important Medical Disclaimer

This Website is not an attempt to practice medicine or provide specific medical advice, nor does use of the site establish a doctor-patient relationship.

Your use of this Website does not establish a doctor-patient relationship. If you think you have a medical emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. Do not rely on electronic communications or communications through this Website for medical assistance.


Your Ability to Accept These Terms and Submit Information.

You represent that you are at least the age of majority in the jurisdiction where you live or, if you are not, your parent or legal guardian must consent to these Terms of Service and affirm that they accept those terms on your behalf and bear responsibility for your use. If you are accepting these Terms of Service on behalf of someone else or an entity, you confirm that you have the legal authority to bind that person or entity to this Agreement.

You further acknowledge and agree that you have the right to submit any and all information that you provide for yourself or another individual though or via the Website, whether in connection with the user account creation process, submission of information to a study listed on the Website, through the Website's secure messaging functionality or otherwise through the use of the Website or any Website feature or function.


Rally Accounts

You may browse our Website, view certain content on our Website and submit your individual contact information through forms and other features on the Website without creating an individual account. There is no cost to using the Website to search for research opportunities. However, our Website provides an option for Website users to create an individual password protected user account with us to access additional Website content and features through a secure portal, such as personalized study notifications and secure messaging. Website users are not required to create an account if they do not want to access features and content that are only available to account holders.

Researchers within the Mass General Brigham system also have the opportunity to create accounts that allow these researchers, subject to Institutional Review Board (IRB) and other required approvals, to post certain studies on our Website. Researchers who create accounts must also agree to additional terms for Investigator End Users at the time of account creation and each time they wish to post a study to the Website.


Secure Messaging through the Website

Secure Messaging in Rally, a feature available on the Website, allows volunteers and researchers to correspond and submit documentation securely. Messages can only be viewed through the Website after logging in with your username and password. You will be notified when you have a secure message waiting for you via a notification email to the address associated with your account and/or with a notification alert within Rally. To protect your privacy, we will send no personal information within the initial notification email.

All messages are saved by the Website team as a digital record of your communications.

Additionally, messages sent to/from the research team for a particular study will also be used, shared, disclosed and retained in accordance with the informed consent forms, authorizations, or other agreements/terms for that particular study.


No Use by Children Under the Age of 13

Use of the Website by anyone under 13 years of age is prohibited. If you are under the age of 13, please do not attempt to register with us at this Website or provide any personal information about yourself to us. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under the age of 13, we will promptly delete that information. If you believe we have collected personal information from a child under the age of 13, please Contact Us CISPO @ partners.org.


Acceptable Use and Rules of Conduct

Follow the Law. While using the Website, you are required to comply with these Terms and all applicable laws, rules, and regulations.

Respect Others. We also expect users of the Website to respect the rights and dignity of others. Do not use the Website to harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights of others. Do not impersonate anyone. Do not disrupt the operation of the Website. We reserve the right in our sole discretion to restrict or terminate access that does not comport with these Rules of Conduct and to remove any materials that violate these Terms or which we find objectionable.

You will use the Website only in a safe manner and for lawful and legitimate purposes. Any use of the Website other than as specifically authorized in these Terms is strictly prohibited and may result in our suspension or termination of your license to use the Website, as well as possibly exposing you to legal action and damages.

In using the Website, you shall not:

  • engage in any illegal or criminal activity, including, but not limited to, threats of physical harm or harassment, theft or infringement of intellectual property rights, fraud, or forgery;
  • post or transmit any unlawful or otherwise objectionable material of any kind on the Website;
  • collect, steal, or harvest any personal information through the Website;
  • impersonate any person or entity or misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity;
  • use this Website for any purpose in violation of local, state, national, or international laws;
  • use this Website as a means to distribute or post advertising or other unsolicited material to any third party;
  • reverse engineer, disassemble, or decompile any software included on the Website;
  • use any scraping, data mining, robots, or similar data gathering or extraction methods in connection with the Website;
  • disrupt the operation of the Website in any manner, including, but not limited to, through the use of methods such as denial of service attacks, flooding, or spamming;
  • use the Website to violate the security of a network, service, or other system, whether successful or not, or to modify, erase, or damage any information contained on the computer of any user connected to the Website;
  • interfere with, compromise the system integrity or security, or decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running the Website;
  • take any action that imposes, or may impose at our sole discretion, an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;
  • upload invalid data, viruses, worms, keyloggers, spyware, Trojan horses, time bombs, malicious or harmful code, or other software agents through the Website;
  • violate any requirements, procedures, policies, or regulations of networks connected or linked to the Website;
  • hack, spam, or phish the Website or other users of the Website; or
  • use the Website other than for its intended purposes and in any manner that is inconsistent with these Terms.

Data Protection

Security. We maintain safeguards intended to protect the integrity and security of the Website. However, we cannot guarantee that the Website will be secure, complete, or correct, or that access to the Website will remain uninterrupted.

Third Party Web Websites; Links. The Website links to other websites and online services. We have no control over these third parties. We do not endorse their products and services. We are not responsible for the availability, accuracy, or security of these sites.

Indemnity. You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless us, and our directors, officers, employees, agents, Affiliates, and representatives, from and against all claims, losses, costs and expenses (including without limitation attorneys' fees) arising out of any violation of these Terms by you.


Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability

Disclaimer. THE WEBSITE AND ALL OF ITS TEXT, IMAGES, AND SOFTWARE (COLLECTIVELY, "CONTENTS") ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY. YOU AGREE THAT YOU MUST EVALUATE, AND THAT YOU BEAR ALL RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH, THE USE OF THE WEBSITE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY RELIANCE ON THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS OR USEFULNESS OF ANY CONTENT AVAILABLE THROUGH OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE WEBSITE.

Limitation of Liability. We recognize that some laws provide consumers specific rights and remedies and expressly prohibit waiver of these rights. Except with respect to these laws, you waive all damages under any cause of action other than actual damage for out-of-pocket loss. For example, except with respect to these laws, you waive nominal damages, liquidated damages, statutory damages, consequential damages, presumed damages, as well as the imposition of costs and attorney's fees.


Links to External Websites

These Terms apply only to this Website. This Website contains links to other websites, within and outside of Mass General Brigham. Please be aware that these Terms do not apply to those websites. We encourage you to read the privacy policy on any other websites before providing them with personal information.

Certain interactive applications may be linked to this Website as a convenience for you. If you choose to utilize a specific application, please be sure to read the privacy policy associated with that application. REDCap, a secure data collection and online survey platform commonly used to collect research data from participants, is an example of such an application.


Intellectual Property

The Website and its Contents, including all trademarks, service marks, and graphical elements, are our sole property unless otherwise expressly noted and are protected by copyright, trademark, patent, and/or other proprietary rights and laws. The Website and its Contents may also contain third-party names, trademarks, and service marks that are the property of their respective owners. Subject to these Terms, you are granted a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and revocable license to use the Website solely for your own personal, non-commercial purposes and solely in accordance with these Terms.

This license is terminable at any time and does not grant you any additional rights to the Website or its Contents. Mass General Brigham reserves all other rights. You may not modify, alter or change any Content, or distribute, publish, transmit, reuse, re-post, reverse engineer, or disassemble the Content or any portion thereof for public or commercial purposes, including, without limitation, the text, images, audio and video. Your use of any Content, except as provided in these Terms, without our written permission is strictly prohibited.


Dispute Resolution Terms (Please Read Carefully)

Choice of Arbitrator and Rules. Any disputes, claims, and causes of action arising out of or connected with your use of the Website (each, a "Dispute") must be submitted exclusively to the American Arbitration Association (AAA) to be heard under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. If for any reason, AAA is unable or unwilling to conduct the arbitration consistent with these terms, you and we will pick another arbitrator pursuant to 9 U.S. Code §5.

Mandatory (Individual) Arbitration. You agree that any Dispute between us shall be resolved exclusively in individual (non-class) arbitration. The parties intend to be bound to the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq. An arbitration means there will be no jury, and no judge.

Scope of Arbitration. The arbitrator shall exclusively determine all issues as to the Dispute, applying these Terms. The arbitrator shall also determine any question as to whether any Dispute or issue is subject to arbitration. The arbitrator shall not have the power to hear any Dispute as a class action, mass action, or representative action. The arbitrator shall not have any power to issue relief to anyone but You or us.

Children. This Website is intended for adults only. This Website is not intended for use by children under the age of 13.

Exception to Arbitration (Small Claims Court). Disputes that can be fully resolved in small claims court need not be submitted to arbitration. Choice of Venue (Boston, Massachusetts). You agree that any Disputes shall be heard exclusively in Boston, Massachusetts unless otherwise agreed to by the Parties or determined by the arbitrator. You consent to jurisdiction in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for all purposes.

Choice of Law (Massachusetts). These Terms and your use of the Website are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, U.S.A., without regard to its choice of law provisions. However, any determination as to whether a Dispute is subject to arbitration, or as to the conduct of the arbitration, shall be governed exclusively by the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.

Class Action Waiver. You agree that any Dispute between us shall be resolved in an individual action. Under no circumstances will you file, seek, or participate in a class action, mass action, or representative action in connection with a Dispute.

Remedies Available in Arbitration. The arbitrator may grant any remedy, relief, or outcome that the parties could have received in court, including awards of attorney's fees and costs, in accordance with the law(s) that applies to the case, except injunctive relief.

Injunctive Relief. The arbitrator may not issue any injunction. If either party in a Dispute seeks injunctive relief, the arbitrator will complete arbitration of the Dispute, issue an award of monetary compensation (if any), and then the party seeking injunctive relief may file a new action in state or federal court in Boston, Massachusetts, solely for injunctive relief. The findings of fact and conclusions of law of the arbitrator shall not be submitted as evidence or constitute precedent in this subsequent suit.


Miscellaneous

Notices. Notices to you may be made via posting to the Website, by email, or by regular mail, at our sole discretion. Notices to us should be made using the contact information below.

Evidence. You agree that a printed version of these Terms and of any notice given in electronic form, including by posting to the Website, shall be admissible in judicial or administrative proceedings based upon or relating to these Terms.

Force Majeure. We will not be responsible for any failure to fulfill any obligation due to any cause beyond our control.

Information or Complaints. If you have any questions, concerns, complaints or suggestions regarding our Website Terms and Conditions or otherwise need to contact us, please email us at CISPO @ partners.org, call us at 1-800-856-1983, or contact us by US postal mail at the following address:

Mass General Brigham Incorporated
399 Revolution Drive
Somerville, MA 02145
Attn: Chief Information Security and Privacy Officer

Claims of Copyright Infringement. Digital Millennium Copyright Act Notice. We respect the intellectual property rights of others and require that our users do the same. If you believe that any content available on our Website or other activity taking place on our Website constitutes infringement of a work protected by copyright (each, a "Work"), then please notify us as follows:

Mass General Brigham Incorporated (formerly Partners HealthCare System, Inc.)
399 Revolution Drive
Somerville, MA 02145
Attn: William Glen Mitchell, Manager of Security Monitoring
Email: dmca-agent @ partners.org

Your notice must comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. §512) (the "DMCA"). Upon receipt of a compliant notice, we will respond and proceed in accordance with the DMCA.

We have implemented a repeat infringer policy to address instances in which a particular user is subject to multiple DMCA notifications (the "Repeat Infringer Policy"). If we determine that a user has violated our Repeat Infringer Policy, then we may take, in our sole discretion, any number of steps including, but not limited to, issuing warnings to the applicable user, suspending, or terminating that user's account, and any other interim measures that we deem appropriate.


Changes

Changes to the Website. We may modify or discontinue the Website and its Contents at any time, in our sole discretion.

Changes to the Terms. We may change these Terms at any time. We will provide reasonable notice, by posting a revised version of these Terms through the Website. By continuing to use the Website, you agree to the new Terms.

Errors, Inaccuracies And Omissions. Occasionally there may be information on our Website that contains typographical errors, inaccuracies, or omissions. We reserve the right to correct any errors, inaccuracies, or omissions; however, we undertake no obligation to update, amend, or clarify information on the Website, except as required by law. No specified update or refresh date applied to the Website should be taken to indicate that all information with respect to the Website has been modified or updated.

Access To the Website. You understand that the Website is provided as a courtesy to you and that we may modify, suspend, or terminate all or a portion of the Website at any time in our discretion without prior notice to you. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to revoke, terminate, or suspend any privileges associated with accessing the Website for any reason or for no reason whatsoever, including improper use of the Website or failure to comply with these Terms, and to take any other action we deem appropriate. We may immediately deactivate or delete all related information and files. You agree that neither Mass General Brigham nor any of its affiliates shall be liable to you or any third party for any termination of your access to the Website.

Visitor/User Suggestions. You acknowledge and agree that any questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback or other information provided by you to Mass General Brigham (collectively, "Feedback") are not confidential and you hereby grant to Mass General Brigham a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, publish, modify, edit, or otherwise use such Feedback as it deems appropriate, for any and all commercial or non-commercial purposes, in its sole discretion.



Terms of Use Addendum for Researchers


This Terms of Use Addendum for researchers ("Addendum") is attached to, and modifies the terms of, the Terms of Use for use of the Rally with Mass General Brigham website (this "Website"), which is developed, hosted, and operated by Mass General Brigham Incorporated ("Mass General Brigham").

1. Background. By choosing to use this Website to post information about your research project you acknowledge and agree to the terms of the Privacy Policy, the Terms of Use Agreement, and this Addendum. We encourage you to read these carefully before using this Website. We reserve the right to modify these terms and policies and recommend that you periodically review them, because your use of this site constitutes your agreement to this Addendum and you will be expected to comply with these terms and policies.

2. Authenticity of Users. Mass General Brigham cannot guarantee the authenticity of information users may provide about themselves. You acknowledge that you are responsible for confirming the accuracy of all user information with the relevant user.

3. Communications with Users. You agree to keep information about the project up-to-date and to note or mark the project as not recruiting when the project stops enrollment and/or has reached full enrollment; provided, however, you should maintain any research records for the required retention period under applicable laws and institutional policies. You agree to respond to communications from users of this Website within five (5) days of receipt of such communication. Failure to do so, or allowing communications from volunteers to lapse may result in deactivation of your public listing until updates have been made.

4. Submitting User Content to This Website. Researchers can create, upload, edit, distribute, or post photographs, videos, audio clips, written forum comments, data, text, graphics, or other information to this Website (collectively, the "User Content"). By submitting any User Content to this Website, you hereby represent, warrant, acknowledge and agree that:

a. You received appropriate Institutional Review Board ("IRB") approval, when this approval is required, prior to publishing your project or otherwise sharing User Content;

b. You are publishing that User Content on this Website and the project leader/principal investigator/study staff's name and contact information associated with your project may be published with any such User Content;

c. You (i) own or otherwise control all rights to all content in your User Content, or that the content in such User Content is in the public domain, (ii) have full authority to act on behalf of any and all owners of any right, title or interest in and to any content in your User Content to use such content as contemplated by these Terms and to grant the license rights set forth above, (iii) have the permission to use the name and likeness of each identifiable individual person and to use such individual's identifying or personal information as contemplated by the User Agreement and Addendum; and (iv) are authorized to grant all of the aforementioned rights to the User Content to this Website and all users of the Website;

d. You agree to pay all royalties and other amounts owed to any person or entity due to your submission of any User Content to the site;

e. The use or other exploitation of such User Content by this Website and the use or other exploitation by users of the site as contemplated by the User Agreement and Addendum will not infringe or violate the rights of any third party, including without limitation any privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights, or any other intellectual property or proprietary rights of any kind; and

f. This Website shall have the right, but not the obligation, to delete, edit, modify, reformat, excerpt, or translate any materials, content or information submitted by you; and that all information publicly posted or privately transmitted through the site is the sole responsibility of the person and institution from which such content originated.

5. Disclaimer. Neither Mass General Brigham, nor any Mass General Brigham affiliate, nor any employee, contractor, officer, director, trustee agent or member of the medical or professional staff of Mass General Brigham or any Mass General Brigham affiliate shall be liable for any errors or omissions in any content posted to the Website. Furthermore (i) we cannot and do not guarantee the identity any Website users or other individuals with whom you may interact in the course of using the Website and (ii) we cannot and do not guarantee the validity or veracity of in information submitted to or through the Website or using and Website functionality, including, but not limited to, any secure messaging functionality.

6. Intellectual Property. You hereby grant to Mass General Brigham the worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable right to use, modify, reproduce, copy, display and reformat your User Content solely in connection with the services made available through this Website.

7. Audit and Compliance. All information and documentation generated and/or collected through the Website, including, without limitation, correspondence and secure messaging, may be subject to audits, monitoring, and review by compliance, regulatory, quality, and other groups within and outside of Mass General Brigham.

8. Termination. Mass General Brigham may cancel, interrupt, suspend, or remove from public listings a project listed on this Website at any time for any reason.

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